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> Makes no practical or business sense? How many engineers does Microsoft have working on the Windows kernel? This is really anecdotal, as I sadly did not find
by tlamponi 6y ago
> Makes no practical or business sense? How many engineers does Microsoft have working on the Windows kernel?
This is really anecdotal, as I sadly did not find the article I have this information from, but IIRC, the core NT Kernel team isn't as big as one would expect, about a dozen to two dozens maximum (big emphasis on "if I recall correctly").
- taylodl 6y agoThat points to another issue: sustainability. If the group is that small, and presumably aging, then how do you ensure you have enough in the pipeline to ensure you can support and enhance the Windows kernel for years to come?
- yoshuaw 6y agoWhy do you presume that group is aging and not regularly rotating people? A dozen people sounds like a standard team size to me, which seems mostly indicative of the scope (not importance) of the work. Also I believe Microsoft employs somewhere around 50.000 engineers, a good amount of whom work on and maintain low-level systems. I find it unlikely they'd have a shortage of sourcing talent for one of their core projects.
- bobajeff 6y agoI imagine maintaining the kernel is very important. As that can be (and is) a major source of vulnerabilities. Also, it largely determines what hardware Windows can run on and what features it can have/support. If the NT kernel is in maintenance mode that might be because they are planning on replacing it.
- OrderlyTiamat 6y agoI recall Linus saying the same thing about waning numbers of linux kernel developers, so it seems like that is a problem affecting both kernels.